Abdulrahman bin Abdullah Al-Samari, CEO of Saudi local content and procurement authority

Abdulrahman bin Abdullah Al-Samari has been appointed chief executive officer of the Local Content and Government Procurement Authority.

He becomes the first CEO of the authority since it was established by royal order in December 2018.

Al-Samari helped in setting up the authority and the development of its business strategy prior to the board of directors appointing him to head the organization.

Authority chairman Ghassan bin Abdulrahman Al-Shebl said that Al-Samari had made an outstanding contribution to the development of its structure and the drafting of its strategy, adding that the authority sought national cadres to assist in achieving its goals.

Al-Samari has worked in the field of strategic consulting for the public and private sectors and also has extensive experience in the oil and gas industry specializing in areas such as business strategy, supply chain development, and financial and operational planning.

He was vice president and managing director of the Local Content and Private Sector Development Unit (Namaa) from January 2017 until December 2018.

Al-Samari gained a bachelor’s degree in management information systems from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and a master’s degree in business administration from the same institution.

He started his career at Saudi Aramco in 2004 as an analyst, working on projects that enhanced data processing systems, before joining the company’s Northern Area Oil Operations business as an analyst in planning, accounting, and business systems.

For four years from 2012, Al-Samari worked as a strategy manager at Accenture, a strategy, consulting, digital technology and operations services company.

Between 2016 and 2017, he was an adviser to the Saudi minister of economy and planning.